


distant stars, lost in the dark

by dinomight



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, could be read as pre-ship if you want though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 14:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16599842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinomight/pseuds/dinomight
Summary: “We,” Caleb starts, then pauses, trying to remember how exactly they got here. “We were retreating from the fight with the bandits, I think. They must have set up a trap in the tunnels—something collapsed, and now we’re stuck. But the others are coming for us.” The injury pulses again, and he groans. When the pain passes, Jester is by his side, inspecting. “You can do something about this, ja?”She shakes her head, frowning. “I—I can’t. I don’t have any spells left—oh! I can cast Mending still!” Jester grabs for her holy symbol, but Caleb puts his hand out, shaking his head.“Please do not do that.”(Or: a fight gone wrong leaves Caleb and Jester trapped.)





	distant stars, lost in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for description of blood and injury, though it's not too graphic.  
> Title from "Holy Ground" by BANNERS.

The first thing he does upon waking is cough.

Dust is everywhere. It fills his mouth, coats his lungs and his lips. Caleb can feel it even on his hands, though the pitch black doesn’t allow him to see it.

He groggily sits up, leaning against the stone wall behind him. His side throbs, and he groans as he presses his hands to it. It’s warm and squishy and _scheisse_ , it hurts so much—

 _CALEB!_ Nott’s voice rings through his mind, and Caleb nearly smacks his head against the wall in surprise. She’s frantic, more panicked than usual. _CALEB, WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU ALIVE? PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE!_

 _Nott?_ He replies, his head still spinning. The dark is filled with small, fuzzy bursts of color, and he has a feeling that’s not a good sign.

_Caleb! Are you okay? We’ve been looking for you and Jester, but we can’t find you anywhere. Fjord thinks you got trapped when the cave collapsed. Is Jester with you?_

A thrum of anxiety takes hold of him when he realizes that he doesn’t hear anyone else awake in the space with him. Quickly, he reaches into his component pouch and pinches a glowworm between his fingers before raising a shaking hand into the air. With a few muttered words, four small lights burst into existence, lighting up the pocket of cave around him. It’s not a large space. He guesses it can’t be more than seven or eight feet wide, and a little under six feet tall at most.

More important, however, is the crumpled form a few feet from him. Jester is laying with her back to him, completely still, and for a moment, panic surges through him. Then her chest rises and falls, and Caleb lets out the breath he was holding.

_Yes, Jester is here. Unconscious, but alive._

_How are you?_

Caleb doesn’t see the point in freaking Nott out anymore than she already is. _Fine, just bumped my head a bit. Are you able to get through to us?_

_We’re close by, but Fjord says we have to be careful with these rocks or we could cause another cave in. I’m so sorry, Caleb, I wish we could get to you sooner._

_It’s okay, schatz. We will be fine._

_Okay, okay. Just. Message me if something happens. And don’t die, please._

He sighs as the last words fade in his mind. It looks as though he’s on his own, at least until he can wake Jester up.  

The wound in his side stretches and pulls painfully as he attempts to reach his leg out towards her limp form. The toe of his boot just barely brushes against her shoulder, and he bites back a yell as another spasm hits. “Jester,” he hisses between heaving breaths. “Jester, wake up. _Bitte_ , Jester.”

For a few moments, nothing happens, and Caleb feels his breaths coming faster and faster. Before he can begin descending into full blown anxiety, though, Jester groans, shifting. Slowly, she sits up, one hand pressed to her head.

“Oh...what happened? Caleb?” She turns to him, her nose scrunched up. When she sees the blooming red across the front of his shirt, her eyes go wide. “You’re bleeding! Ah! Caleb, what is going on?”

“We,” Caleb starts, then pauses, trying to remember how exactly they got here. “We were retreating from the fight with the bandits, I think. They must have set up a trap in the tunnels—something collapsed, and now we’re stuck. But the others are coming for us.” The injury pulses again, and he groans. When the pain passes, Jester is by his side, inspecting. “You can do something about this, _ja_?”

She shakes her head, frowning. “I—I can’t. I don’t have any spells left—oh! I can cast Mending still!” Jester grabs for her holy symbol, but Caleb puts his hand out, shaking his head.

“Please do not do that.”

She sinks back onto her heels, wrapping her arms around herself. Caleb can see the glint of fear in her eyes as she looks around, taking in the tight situation they’re in. “They’ll come soon, right? It’s only a little bit of rock. That’s, like, nothing for us.”

“ _Ja_ , it should not take too long.”

* * *

“Where are they?”

They’re approaching the one hour mark, and Jester is currently pacing back and forth, one hand clutching her symbol and the other fiddling with the chains hanging from her horns. Caleb watches as the tops of her horns nearly brush the ceiling in some parts. The bleeding from his wound has slowed, in part thanks to Jester using her cape as a press. His head, however, pounds, and he has found that he’s too weak to even sit up on his own.

“I am sure they’re working on getting us out,” Caleb says gently. He lifts one hand and pats the ground beside him. “Come, sit. We should not waste any air in here.”

She nods, plopping down beside him with her arms crossed. Her bottom lip is fighting a losing war, tugged back by nervous teeth. A few minutes of quiet pass before she shifts, the nervous energy about her reaching a breaking point. “Can’t you message Nott or something?”

“I am trying to conserve my energy,” he explains, wincing as the wound begins to ache, almost as though it doesn’t want him to forget it is there. “We just need to trust that they are coming for us.”

“Okay, fine,” she says, but it lacks her usual attitude. With her hunched shoulders and small frown, Jester is a mere shadow of herself. And Caleb knows that if they are to get through this, it’d be in his best interest to try and fix that.

“Tell me something about your childhood.”

“Why do you want to hear about that?” Jester looks at him, head tilted.

“I am getting tired.” It’s not a lie. Over the past few minutes, Caleb has had to fight to keep his eyes from drifting closed. There is a voice in the back of his mind, yelling at him to stay awake, that if he falls asleep there will be no waking up this time. There’s another voice that says maybe that’s not a bad thing—but he’s come this far without succumbing to it, there’s no point in giving in now. Especially not when Jester’s life may depend on it as well.

“Okay,” Jester hums, leaning back. A smile spreads across her face as she thinks. “Oh! I know. There was this one time, when I was a little girl, that I convinced one of my mama’s clients that he was totally crazy. I would follow him around downstairs and use Thaumaturgy to make it sound like someone was whispering to him.” She giggles, and there’s this far away look in her eyes, like she’s lost in memories. “One day he just started yelling and he ran out.”

“Isn’t that a bit cruel?” He shifts, readjusting the nearly soaked bundle of fabric. Jester scoots closer to him, leaning in to take a look at it herself as she replies.

“No. Okay, maybe. But he deserved it! He wasn’t very nice. I overheard my mama say she wasn’t going to keep seeing him, anyways.”

“Ah, well, that makes sense. I am sure the Traveler appreciated the act?”

“Oh, he loved it,” she says, laughing. “It was one of the first pranks we did together. He was very impressed by my creativity.”

“How did you and the Traveler meet?” He asks as she pulls her water canteen from her belt, pouring some onto a piece of cloth she ripped from the cape.

“That’s a really fun story. So one day, I was up in my room, drawing and—” Jester pauses, leaning in towards him with wide eyes. “Oh, Caleb, I think there’s still an arrowhead in—” She goes to probe at the wound, but the second her finger brushes it his world bursts with pain and his vision goes completely white.

* * *

When Caleb comes to, it’s completely dark once more, but this time the sound of sobbing fills the air. The throbbing in his side has dulled, not completely but enough that he no longer feels like everything is on fire.

“Jester?” His voice rasps, and he coughs weakly. The sobbing continues, uninterrupted. He clears his throat and tries again, a bit louder this time. “Jester.”

There’s a deep breath, and then some sniffles, until finally she says with disbelief, “Caleb?”

“Yes. What—” He doesn’t get a chance to finish his question before there are strong, warm hands grabbing his shoulders. She quickly pulls him in for a hug, careful to twist around his injury. Her breaths still come short and fast, and Caleb feels the side of his neck grow damp from where her tears drip onto him.

“You can’t, you can’t do that to me. Oh, gods, it was horrible, I thought you were—I thought I was—” The jewelry on her horns clink and jangle, and though he can’t see it he knows she’s shaking her head. Jester then brings her forehead down to rest softly on his shoulder. Caleb can feel one of her horns brushing against his face, and he brings a bloodied hand up tentatively, gently, to rest on her back.

They stay like that for a few minutes, until the tears stop flowing and she can catch her breath. Slowly, she leans back, and the cold air replaces her warm form. It’s strange, how he finds himself longing for that touch again, even if he knows he does not deserve it.

“Um, Caleb, could you maybe summon those lights again? It’s just. It’s very dark.” The words are small and shaky and not at all like Jester, and it’s for that reason that Caleb reaches for his component pouch even though he knows he should be saving his strength.

He goes through the motions again, and then the room is lit up once more. Jester sighs with relief as the lights spread through the space, and a thought suddenly occurs to him.

“Can’t you see in the dark?” He frowns. “Did something happen that hurt your eyes?”

“No. Well, yes. Yes, I can see in the dark, and no, nothing damaged my eyes. It’s just—I don’t like it. It’s not as bright, you know?” He watches as she forces a smile, as though the tip of her nose isn’t red and there aren’t still tear tracks staining her cheeks. Her head tilts as she looks at him, like she just remembered something as well. “Wait, don’t you have that little rock that helps you see in the dark? Unless—oh no, did the glitter break it?”

“What glitter?”

“Never mind,” Jester says in a singsong voice. He has a feeling that he will need to clean his stone later.

“To answer your question, no,” Caleb says, regret plain in his voice. “When the battle started going south, I cast a spell and used the lingering energy from it to change the stone’s properties so it would give me extra speed instead.”

“That was pretty stupid.”

“ _Ja_ , it was.”

“Maybe we should play a game,” Jester says, and he holds back a wince at the way she infuses her words with such fake excitement, like she’s trying to convince herself as much as him. “You know, to keep you awake. Until the others get here.”

“What sort of game?” He decides to play along. If this is the way Jester copes with things, well. It’s not like he has much room to judge in these matters.

“There used to be this game that my mama and I played, where one person would say a word and then the other person would have to come with a word that started with the same letter, and we’d work through the entire alphabet.” Jester moves beside him, this time snuggling right up to his uninjured side. Almost against his will, Caleb feels himself relax against her, leaning his head towards her shoulder. “Here, I’ll start. Donuts.”

“That does not begin with an A.”

“Caleb! You’re already breaking the rules. I said donut, so you have to pick a word that starts with D.”

“ _Scheisse_...fine. Dick.”

She bursts out laughing, real and loud and genuine. Caleb can’t help the smile that spreads across his face at the sound, the bubbles of laughter that escape him despite the protests of his wounded side. “You’re so silly when you’re losing blood. Ear.”

“Eagle.”

“Ferret.”

“Frumpkin.”

* * *

They only get to letter M or so before one of the words sends Jester into another one of her stories, something about a prank she pulled on a mean cook who yelled at her. Caleb tries to pay attention—it’s almost hard not to, what with the way she gestures wildly and speaks with such excitement—but eventually he feels his eyelids begin to droop. Darkness encroaches on the edges of his vision, growing until he can no longer see the blue tiefling at his side, growing until he can no longer see anything at all…

There are soft hands cupping his cheeks. A gentle voice calling his name. He opens his eyes, but everything is still dim and blurry, and Caleb thinks maybe he is late for his lessons. He’s glad Astrid is here to wake him up, or the punishment he’d receive from Master Ikithon would be much worse.

The voice, her voice, calls his name again, shaking him, and he musters up the energy to mutter, “Astrid, I know. I am getting up.”

“Caleb, you need to wake up. Now.”

“Go bother Eodwulf, Astrid.”

“Who’s Eodwulf?”

He opens his eyes completely, and reality snaps back into place. Instead of blonde there is only blue as Jester stares down at him, brows furrowed. With a groan, he raises his hand, gestures, and the lights return to full brightness.

“You’re getting worse, Caleb. It’s been hours—I know you said you needed to save your magic, but maybe you should message Nott,” she says reluctantly.

“We might lose the lights if I do that.” Caleb pushes himself up more, trying to move into a full sitting position rather than a slump. “Will you be okay with that?”

She nods vigorously, with a set determination to her jaw. And while he may still have his doubts, he also knows that Jester is right—he might not last much longer if the others do not find them soon.

_Nott. Are you there? How close are you to getting through? We...might have a problem._

He waits one, two, three beats. Jester looks at him expectantly, but there is no response. Her face starts to fall, and something in his chest begins to lurch.

“Wait,” he says, nodding with a hand pressed to his forehead. “She responded. She said...they’re close, they just need a little more time.”

Anxiety twists in his gut, even as Jester sighs with relief and huddles close to him. It grows more and more while the lights slowly dim, his waning concentration allowing them to go out. If Nott didn’t answer...it could mean so many things. It’s possible she didn’t get the message, or that there was no one there to receive it. That he doesn’t even want to consider, but the rational part of his brain, the one that still rings with Ikithon’s voice, tells him that he has to. If Nott is gone, then he has to find a way out. He has to survive, to fix what he’s done.

As they are pitched into darkness, though, Caleb realizes he may not have a choice.

* * *

Minutes pass. Or maybe it’s hours. Or days. Even Caleb’s keen mind is fuddled by darkness and blood loss. If it weren’t for the quiet breathing of Jester next to him, he may have thought he was dead already.

They sit together in the silence, waiting. She’s pressed up next to him, her warmth only barely diminishing the chill that has taken hold in his bones. Caleb thinks she must have noticed his shivering, because eventually she wraps one arm around him and rubs soft circles into his shoulder.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when he notices that the circles stop, and the shaking isn’t all coming from him. The once steady breathing beside him starts to hitch, and Jester’s horns scrape against the stone as she tilts her head, leaning her forehead against his shoulder.

“Jester,” he says softly, thinking back to her fear, her panic. “Are you...afraid of the dark?”

“What?” The disbelief in her voice is surprisingly genuine. “No, that’d be stupid. Only little babies are scared of the dark. Besides, I can still see, unlike you.”

“Being scared of the dark is a perfectly rational fear. Plenty of terrifying things lurk in the dark.”

“Wait, what?”

“Not in here, of course. I just meant in general.”

She’s quiet for a few moments. “It’s not really that it’s dark, I guess...maybe. It’s just, like, harder to see. And it’s cold. And it’s _so_ small. And...it smells like blood.” Her breath hitches in a soft sob before she buries her face in his shoulder again.

Cold, and small, and bloody. Caleb can’t believe it took him so long to put it together. He’d known that the...events, that happened in Shady Creek Run had more of an impact on Jester than her cheerful, joking manner had let on, but he hadn’t stopped to think about how their current situation might be tied to that. It appears as though he isn’t the only member of the Mighty Nein haunted by ghosts.

He knows he can’t rid her of those ghosts, not when he can barely handle his own. But he could try sharing a few, so she won’t feel alone.

“Eodwulf was...a friend of mine. A long time ago,” he whispers, staring into the darkness as though it will keep away the memories. At his side, Jester stiffens, and then the pressure from his shoulder lifts. Even though he can’t see them, he can feel her wide blue eyes looking up at him.

“Was—was Astrid a friend too?” She asks quietly when he doesn’t continue.

“I suppose friend doesn’t really cover what either of them were to me.” Blonde hair falling in his face. Dark hands drifting down his back. No, friends can’t begin to explain what they are. Were. “We grew up together, in a way. Learned magic together. Did...things, together.”

“What happened to them?”

“I do not know.” It’s the truth. He has no idea what became of either of them all those years ago. The last thing he remembers is Astrid crying out as Ikithon raised his hand, magic gathering in his palm.

“Caleb,” she starts, and then stops. He knows what the question is even as it forms on her tongue, and yet it still strikes something dark into him. “What happened to you?”

 _What happened to you?_ What does she want to know? What happened that made him afraid of fire? What happened to make him become _this_? What happened that night? He doesn’t know what to say, because he doesn’t have the answers for any of those. He still doesn’t know where it went wrong, if it was him or Ikithon or fate with a vendetta—or if this is just who he’s been the whole time, and the fire simply burned the mask away. In the end, all he knows is what he’s done, and what it makes him.

“I have done very bad things, Jester. I am not a good person.”

“Well, I think we’ve all done pretty bad stuff. I mean, we did steal that boat that one time,” she says, giggling, but Caleb knows she doesn’t understand what he is saying. Maybe it’s the fierce aching in his side messing with him, but he thinks—no, he knows that he has to make her understand, make her realize that she needs to stay away from him or risk becoming a ghost herself.

“No, Jester, what I have done is far worse than that. I—” Before he can even begin telling her, he lurches forward, nearly knocking her back in the process as agony floods through his side. He cries out, hands clawing at the wound as he falls onto his side, writhing. Jester calls out his name, but he is already too far gone.

The world passes in brief glimpses. The feeling of hands on his bare stomach. Cool water splashing against the open injury. A damp rag pressed against his forehead. Light, slowly, slowly leaking in. It surprises him. He’d heard a number of people say the path to death is paved with light, but he’d never really believed it would be this way, at least not for him.

Caleb closes his eyes and lets the light take him.

* * *

For the first time since the tunnel collapsed, Caleb wakes up rested.

The ceiling above him is not stone and rock, but instead the light canvas of one of their tents. Early morning sun shines in. Outside, Caleb can hear the muffled sounds of the other members of the Mighty Nein moving around. Based on the crackling and Nott’s complaints, he guesses Caduceus is cooking breakfast. He must’ve been asleep for awhile, since the mere thought of food sends his stomach into intense growls.

Speaking of which—he slowly sits up, letting out a quiet groan at how his muscles protest. The pain in his side is gone, only a slight twinge left behind. When he raises his shirt to look at it, nothing is left of the wound but a small pink scar, no longer than his pinkie at most.

Without any warning, the tent flap pushes open, revealing Jester with a plate of bacon and bread. Caleb quickly pulls his shirt down before she looks up, eyes widening when she sees him sitting up.

“Caleb! You’re awake!” Her face breaks out into a huge grin, and she throws aside the plate of food onto one of the other bed rolls in favor of crawling towards him. He spares a longing glance towards the plate before focusing back on the blue tiefling now kneeling across from him.

“Yes. A bit of a surprise, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh man, you are so lucky. You were almost dead, Caleb.” Her tone has its usual lightheartedness, but there’s a serious glint to her eyes, a slight frown on her lips.

“How did I survive?” He shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind, but try as he might he can not remember what happened.

“It took Nott and the others a little while to get through to us because they had to deal with some bandits coming after them, but they came just in time. Caduceus healed you right back up.” As she says this last part, she leans forward and pokes his side.

“Well, I suppose I will have to thank him then, _ja_?”

Jester doesn’t answer right away, her brows furrowed in thought. After a moment, she says, “You know, Caleb, whatever bad things you did—I don’t think they matter.”

Caleb stares at her blankly, confused, until it hits him, what he almost told her. What he would have told her, if his wound hadn’t stopped him. Still confusing to him, though, is her reaction. “Of course they matter. Jester, I am not—”

“I think you’re very nice, even if you like to pretend that you’re not,” she interrupts. Her gaze drops to her lap, where she twiddles her thumbs a bit. “You...you came back for us. For me. Even though you didn’t have to. So I think that whatever you did, I don’t care.” The seriousness to her expression breaks, and a smile spreads across her face as she looks back up at him. “Anyways, we should go tell Nott that you’re awake. She’s pretty mad, you know.” With that, she starts crawling back towards the tent’s opening.

He is frozen in place, watching her leave. That is...not what he expected, not at all. He thought Jester, curious, nosy Jester, would want to know, and more than that, he thought she would judge him for it. After all, how could someone with such a loving mother understand why someone else would kill their own?

Caleb didn’t just expect it, he _wanted_ it. Beau and Nott are so accepting of what he’s done, even if Beau occasionally calls him on his mistakes. But if Jester, someone who despite her chaotic and mischievous nature has a truly good heart—if she does not care about the horrific things he’s done in the past, then, well. Maybe one day he can…

The thought can’t even finish itself, the concept such a wild one that his brain tries to shut it down. But as he follows after Jester, Caleb thinks—maybe.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Hopefully you enjoyed <3 Kudos/comments are greatly appreciated! Constructive criticism also welcome, just like. Don't be an asshole about it please, lmao.  
> You can find me on Tumblr @xhorass, my sideblog dedicated to Critical Role and all these chaotic dumbasses!


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